A Villainous Pursuit

Released November 13, 1916, Villainous Pursuit is a one-reel Black Diamond Comedy filmed and produced by the United States Motion Picture Corporation (USMPC) in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The film was distributed by Paramount Pictures.

An advertisement for the film that appeared in the November 18, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World on page 950. 

As of the writing of this article (December 2, 2017), no prints of this film are known to survive. If you have any information about the film, please contact us.

 The Library of Congress documents that the USMPC applied for and received copyright #L9590 for A Villianous Pursuit on November 24, 1916. The copyright entry describes the film this way: “Villainous Pursuit in 1 pt written and worked out by James O Walsh Joseph A Richmond and Rex A Taylor Clippings from reel 27968 title description and 172 prints reed Nov 24 1916 L 9590 United States motion picture Corp Wilkes Barre Pa.” The microfilmed image of this copyright filing was not available when Noreen O’Connor conducted research at the Library of Congress in 2012.

A synopsis of the film is available in the November 18, 1916, issue of Motography on page 1157. The text is here transcribed by Noreen O’Connor:

A Villainous Pursuit (One Reel) Black Diamond Comedy–November 13. Produced by the U. S. Motion Picture Corp. for the Paramount program. The story of San who runs a sawmill and Gwendolen, his beautiful daughter.

One day as she is carrying logs to the sawmill, she is approached by Desmond, the villain, who tries to make love to her. She drops a log on him and escapes to her father. The villain therefore threatens dad with the mortgage he holds. Montmorency, the hero, foreman of a cheese factory, comes to the rescue and denounces Desmond, who has deserted his wife and seven children. The action of the comedy is a burlesque of a “meller drammer,” with a number of comic “thrills.”